Cold Weather Raccoon and News about Bow's Calendar

It's so cold out today that water actually freezes. I have seen it with my own eyes. Bow is staying indoors, engaged in proofing and other more scholarly activities.

 Yesterday, while Lawrence was with Bow, I saw a raccoon in the middle of my internal road and stopped to take a picture.

From a distance, I thought maybe it was a cat, but then I realized it could not be, because of its gait. It has hands rather than paws, and that shows by the way it walks. Then I thought, it's a monkey. But that couldn't be right.

For a moment it paused and looked at me, and it seemed very confused about how to classify me, too. But then it decided it was not staying for a closer look.

By the time I was close enough to get a really good view, the only thing left to see was the tail.

Raccoons are nocturnal. What brought this one out in the daytime? Could it have been confused about the end of Daylight Saving Time? Or was it the unexpected cold that brought it out?

In other news, the proof of Bow's calendar arrived in yesterday's mail.

 After extensive proofing, Bow discovered a typo.

The place where Bow's birthday was marked had the word "Birthday" spelled as "Nirthday". Now why couldn't I see that online?

 It looks as if they made Bow's birthday a National Holiday for 2015. Should I keep the "President's Day" label under the birthday cake, or should I just write: "Bow's Birthday: National Holiday"?

Back to the drawing board for us. I'll have to correct it and order another proof. Hope you haven't ordered your calendar yet!

Hark to Your Bees

There is going to be a Project Bow Calendar for sale very soon. It may even look a little like this:

When it's available, I will post a link here, so you can get one for yourself and for any of your friends who may like chimpanzees. I am told they make great gifts for those hard-to-please people who already have everything else.

I feel a little foolish saying this, as it sounds quite a bit like a commercial. However, we must eat, and it would help.

 As Rudyard Kipling once wrote:

Bees, bees, hark to your bees, 

          Hide from your neighbors as much as you please,

          But all that has happened to us you must tell

          Or else we will give you no honey to sell.

Well, I am not a bee keeper, and Bow does not produce honey, or anything that most people would consider to be of value, so this is the best I can do.

 I did see a lot of bees buzzing about this afternoon on my walk. I do not, however, know whether these were eusocial or solitary bees.

Bees are popularly known as little collectivists, and the work ethic is said to be ingrained in their genes, but even they can end up being solitary and hiding from their neighbors, if their system becomes overloaded with non-contributors. I  wrote about all this a while back, here:

http://aya-katz.hubpages.com/hub/The-Evolution-of-Selfishness

For those who think of the bee social hierarchy as static, it seems as if bees are a good role model for social cooperation. But the fact is that if you take into consideration the cyclical dynamics of evolving bee societies, it looks more like this:

It's not just about bees or humans. Towards the middle of my article, there is something about chimpanzees. Chimpanzees tend to work for themselves. They are social, and they do submit to more dominant individuals, but only just enough to get by. They never internalize anybody else's dominance, so on the inside they stay individuals. That's why chimpanzee hierarchies never turn into eusocial caste systems.

I admire Bow's individuality and would not want him to be any other way. But it's a lucky thing for me that he rather enjoys posing for pictures. That gives us something to sell.

Pictures of Bow Out in the Snow

As if to make me eat my words about how it is hard to find current photos of Bow where the snow is visible, on the very day of my last post -- February 11, 2014, Tuesday -- Bow asked to go out in the afternoon and did some serious sunbathing.

I got quite a few shots of him outside.

In some of the pictures the snow is fairly visible, though Bow's face is not the focus.

In other pictures, we can see Bow's face, but then the snow is just a blurry background whiteness.

In some pictures you can see Leo looking longingly in at Bow, as if he thought being in the pen must be lots more fun than being outside it.

There are plenty of interesting poses and facial expressions, but how many of these photos would be good in a calendar? I am not sure. I will have to number them and offer them as possibilities on our Facebook page.

Yesterday, Lawrence was here with Bow and I ran my errands. And today the snow has been slowly melting. But when Bow went out this morning, it was still quite cold.

Bow went out just long enough to use his outdoor voice in a powerful display. Then, satisfied, he went right back in. Even if it is too cold to stay out,  a short foray into the great outdoors can work wonders!

Winter Pictures

As a way to raise money for Project Bow, I am planning to put out a calendar with pictures of Bow next year. I am asking fans of Project Bow to help select the pictures. For instance, I was thinking that one of these six photos should be the January image on next year's calendar.

So far, out of these six pictures, the Facebook vote has been overwhelmingly for #3. The second  most popular choice is #6. But some people think a January picture in the calendar ought to include snow. This makes a lot of sense, except for one thing: when it snows, Bow does not go outside. I do have some family pictures from long ago in which I am holding a clothed and very bundled up Bow outside in the snow, but I am not sure if that would work for the calendar. In one of my old albums I found this picture, which shows Bow in the sun room with snow visible through the window behind him. 

This image is just a photo of a photo. It would take me some time to dig up the negative for this shot, and I am not sure if all people who like chimpanzees would approve of this picture of this quiet moment from our past, with Bow and my daughter together with no barriers.

That's part of the problem we have. Some people don't approve of the pens, and some people don't approve of the freedom Bow had before the pens became necessary. Some people think chimpanzees and humans should never touch, and others want absolute freedom for all chimpanzees -- or else extinction. We have taken a middle course: as much freedom and as much contact as Bow can handle at the time, with appropriate changes as the circumstances demand.

Should the calendar cover our entire past? Should it contain only recent pictures? Should Bow be in every shot, or should we also show the property where Bow lives, with an eye to getting people to help us build that five acre island for Bow, where he can have more freedom to roam?

Of course, I do have wonderful images just of snow, but  Bow is not in those pictures at all. Lately, there has been nothing but snow. This shot is from yesterday.

I like the shadows of the trees on the snow. It would not be a bad image for a January calendar illustration. But Bow is not in it. When the weather is like that, Bow does not want to go out. He naps a lot.

When he wakes up, he looks like this:

And afterwards, we spend a lot of time just sitting around together.

We sometimes read books, paint, browse through magazines and art books. But there's not much evidence in these pictures of the winter wonderland that surrounds us. 

So I need your advice: what sort of calendar should it be? One that covers all our years together or one that is more current? One that focuses on Bow, or one that also features natural beauty from our property? Should it all be portraits, or should some of it be landscapes? I wish I could feature a January picture of Bow skiing, but that's just not what we do when the snow is on the ground.  

Please comment here if you can, or if not, leave your answers on the Project Bow Fan Page. Thanks!

Marking the Calendar

It's not that Bow can't count. He used to count strawberries and apples and cherry tomatoes. He could tell me how many there were.  And it's not that he does not know what a day is or that he has no concept of time. He understands today, yesterday and tomorrow. He is the one who reminds me when it is noon, and he does it without using a watch. He certainly does know that we eat at twelve, and he does not appreciate deviations from the schedule.

The real problem is that days are such abstract things, and it's harder to count abstractions. Humans have trouble keeping track of the days, too, without the use of a calendar.

Today, I brought in a calendar. Before bringing the calendar into the pens, I had marked all the days that had passed since Sword left, leaving the 8th --today --  for Bow to mark. Bow was happy to have the calendar to look at, but at first he was mostly interested in the pictures of the horses, and he flipped through the calendar to see all the different horse pictures.

But then I explained to him the significance of the squares, that each of them stood for a day, and I showed him how I had marked the days since Sword left, and I let him mark the 8th.

Of course, he'd much rather have scribbled all over the calendar, but he did listen to my explanation and cooperated with me in marking the right square. His self-restraint in not grabbing the pen from me before I was ready to give it is a mark of his growing maturity. And he willingly let me take the calendar back out once we were done.

Just the fact that the calendar survived intact is a big step forward for Bow and me. And now when he asks when Sword is coming back, I will show him the calendar. Only lately he hasn't been asking.